Culture is no excuse for abuse

type:

Crowd Funding, Donation, Project

by:

Deniz Zehra Tavli

Honor Diaries features nine courageous women’s rights advocates who have witnessed firsthand the hardships women endure. By engaging in a dialogue about gender inequality these women are profiled in their efforts to affect change, both in their communities and beyond.

The film gives a platform to exclusively female voices and seeks to expose the paralyzing political correctness that prevents many from identifying, understanding and addressing this international human rights disaster. Freedom of movement, the right to education, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation are some of the systematic abuses explored in depth.

Spurred by the Arab Spring, women who were once silent are starting to speak out and bring visibility to a long history of oppression. This project draws together leading women’s rights activists and provides a platform where their voices can be heard and serves as inspiration to motivate others to speak out.

Support the filmmakers and activists of Honor Diaries and help them to break open the violent structures of institutionalized misogyny.

Guess what the US military is doing with crucial information that could save countless lives in Syria? Absolutely nothing.

The US has access to radar information over Syrian airspace. Right now, someone is sitting in a US military control center watching regime aircraft packed with barrel bombs head towards schools, hospitals and homes while doing nothing to warn Syrians of incoming attacks.The UN Security Council banned barrel bombs exactly a year ago. Since then the barrels have killed nearly 2,000 children. If the international community won’t stop the bombs the least they can do is warn Syrian rescue workers - like the White Helmets - that the barrels are coming. It’s information that will save lives.

Sign the petition on the right and tell the US to release radar information to Syrian rescue workers who can use it to warn neighbourhoods of incoming attacks.

What happens when war journalists cross the line of their profession and get involved for an even better cause than delivering information? They start taking action and help people instead of documenting their prevailing misery. This is how the People in Need Organization was established. During the Balkan Wars in 1992 a group of war correspondents were no longer satisfied with just bringing back information to the Czech Republic. Instead, they began sending out aid. It gradually became established as a professional humanitarian organization striving to provide aid in troubled regions and support adherence to human rights around the world. Within the 20 years of existence, People in Need has implemented relief and development aid programmes in more than 40 countries, currently taking care of refugees in rural Syria and sending out aid convoys to crisis-ridden Eastern Ukraine. Support People in Need by donating money, buying a gift for a farmer or creating a “Run for Africa” charity event at your school to help building schools in poverty affected regions of Africa.

Wonder what it’s like to donate your birthday? 63,063 people have already done it. Behind this idea is an non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to every person in the world: charity: water.

The founders Scott Harrison and Kevin Rose see themselves as passionate and determined creative problem-solvers who want to make a difference. They're not offering grand solutions and billion dollar schemes, but instead, simple things that work. Things like freshwater wells, rainwater catchments and sand filters. For about $30 a person, they know how to help millions.

So why not donate your next birthday and help change lives. Have a look at the video and start your own campaign:

Enough was conceived in 2006 by a small group of concerned policymakers and activists who wanted to transform their frustration about inaction into pragmatic solutions and hope. Co-founded by Africa experts Gayle Smith and John Prendergast, Enough launched in early 2007 as a project of the Center for American Progress. Enough is based in Washington, DC, and works with concerned citizens, advocates, and policy makers to prevent, mitigate, and resolve crises of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Enough Project fights to end genocide and crimes against humanity, focused on areas where some of the world’s worst atrocities occur.

Enough’s strategy papers and briefings provide sharp field analysis and targeted policy recommendations. Enough is also working to develop the policies, tools, and investments that can best be applied to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide now and in the future.

Stay up to date on Enough Project activities, calls to action, and publications by supporting them and their single projects and like them on Facebook and following them on Twitter.

With over 3.3 million members DoSomething is one of the largest organisations for young people and social change. They tackle campaigns that impact every cause, from poverty to violence to the environment to literally everything else. The compaign Teens for Jeans collected 4.3 million pairs of jeans since 2007 for teens experiencing homelessness. Their project Thumb Wars sent 79,898 thumb socks to friends and family to fight texting and driving and 50 Cans recycled 1,333,135 aluminum cans to keep them out of the landfill. "Any cause, anytime, anywhere!" with this theme they engage with an incredible creativity and empower young people around the world not to resign but to make a change.

Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes after starting a website for social and political debate.

On Friday 9 January, Raif Badawi received 50 lashes, while the rest of the full sentence of 1,000 lashes will be carried out, apparently every week on Fridays, for a period of 19 weeks. Please take action now through supporting Amnesty International's petition.

When the bombs rain down in Syria, the White Helmets - the Syrian Civil Defence - rush in to look for life in the rubble. These firefighters, search and rescue workers and medics are unarmed and impartial. And together they've saved 10,221 lives.

Until October, almost all of the official members of the White Helmets were men. But now, as of only a few weeks ago, two women's teams were established - and many more volunteers want to join them.

These women are calling for support from around the world - three ambulances for each of their teams in Idlib and Aleppo to help them transport injured victims to safety.

Each ambulance costs $15,000-- donate now and together we can buy 6 of them for Syria's hardest-hit areas.

India's coal king is planning to turn the Great Barrier Reef into a shipping lane. This puts environment, whales, dolphins and other animals who live there into conrete danger. Chances are that the damages are irreversible. So far all banks have backed away with one exception: the State Bank of India is still in the game for giving loans to India's biggest coal company. Support the Great Barrier Reef by signing the petition on Avaaz.

"Laughing is the best medicine" is the motto of the Red Noses, a Germany-based NGO which brings Clowns into hospitals where they offer support, a good spirit and an open ear to patient's concerns and worries. But not only German patients profit from their service. The red noses can also be found in refugee camps abroad. You can support them with donations.